Time for me to go get a cup of coffee and take a Voltaren.....![]()
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Time for me to go get a cup of coffee and take a Voltaren.....![]()
Last edited by Hawkeye; 01-18-08 at 20:01.
Protego quod vallo.
Si vis pacem para bellum.
I'd be interested in looking into the finish they use to see if the process somehow affects the metalurgy of the slide. They look like they are brittle.
NOT in training for combat deployment.
I don’t think I can ever remember ONE gun generating this much conjecture & controversy.
- Maybe I’m just tired from having to work.
As far as I know, Tenifer and Melonite is a metal conditioning process that hardens the outer 'layers' of the metal while leaving the inner 'core' relatively ductile. This allows excellent durability and hardness, without reducing fracture toughness.
It's possible that the material in that area of the slide was hardened too deeply (by failure of process or by failure of design) and a crack formed in the hard outer portion of the steel and propagated through the thin cross section of metal.
That's speculation on my part of course.
I have four M&P's, two .45, a .40 and just picked up a 9mm. love them and have had no issues. i did wait until they had been out awhile before buying. The MPV series 9 I just bought is really excellent. Great out of the box trigger, really good fit and with a nice deep dark even finish. I dry fire an awful lot so the striker issue concerns me especially if it has not been really fixed.
My guess is that this defect is a atypical and is a result of a quality control error that occurs in all man-made systems. Over the years, I've seen cracks in almost all firearms commonly available. I predict that Smith will keep such to a very small number.
Williejc
I really cant help but think that for now, these are just isolated incidents and not a sign of a bigger problem. Only time will tell though.
Protego quod vallo.
Si vis pacem para bellum.
A few thoughts for my first post:
- The owner of the gun that is pictured in the opening post must be a great guy; we should all donate money to his favorite charity.
- While I appreciate the sentiment some people put forth about "waiting for a gun to be out a while before I trust it," your thought process is misguided. While you wait five years for the M&P to become seasoned, Glock, SIG, Beretta, and HK are all making changes to their guns (materials, dimensional specifications, subvendors, quality control processes, etc.) that you don't even know about. People see a problem with an M&P and they immediately think, "It's that new car smell ... and I don't like it." See a problem with a Glock and they blame something else. But in both cases, it was either a design, material, or QC problem.
- The crack occurred during a shooting session but never caused the gun to malfunction or lose accuracy in a noticeable way. It was still working and, I bet, would continue to work for hundreds more rounds. So while it's an ugly breakage, it was not a catastrophic, life-threatening event. Compare this with, say, a Glock takedown lever spring breaking and shutting the whole gun down completely ... a problem that happened to Glocks for more than a decade before they addressed.
- Though there have been very few cracked M&P slides, most of them have occurred either in the same place as the one pictured in the first post, or they've been the result of people using sight pushers. There is a reason Smith still hasn't released a sight pusher for their gun after two years. They've broken a lot of slides testing different designs.
- As few broken slides they've seen occur "in the wild," Smith has already made a design change to the slide to alleviate (or hopefully eliminate) the problem.
- Sadly, the industry standard for major component life is 20,000 rounds. While most guns will go longer, 20k is considered an acceptable point at which parts failure is attributed to wear rather than defect.
- Someone posted a hope that Smith would get the whole gun back to see what 21k rounds in three months did to the gun overall ... I believe that is exactly what is going to happen; the whole pistol is being replaced.
1. The hell. If that's the case, I guess I need to readdress my strategy of buying and selling stuff.
2. Glad to hear it's official that you'll be getting a new gun. Hopefully no one asks about the idiot who put a mark on your newish front sight.
Good to meet you (again) yesterday. I enjoyed our discussions thoroughly.
Principles matter.
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